More on Congress, Democrats...

Check out an op-ed in Salon.com by Russ Feingold on the Democrats' propensity for caving on civil liberties; Glenn Greenwald on the Dems' pitiful resistance to Michael Hayden, who should have been seen as "the most inflammatory nominee possible" for CIA director; Doug Ireland on the Dems' tendency to capitulate to the religious right on issues like gay marriage; Kathy Kiely on the Dems' faux "Contract With America"; John Byrne on the Dems' squishiness with regards to opposing an attack on Iran (which quotes one Democratic strategist as saying, "The strategy is simple: Give the Republicans enough rope and they'll hang themselves"); and Jonathan Weisman on the preposterous nonbinding resolution on the Iraq War approved by the House late last week (with 42 Democrats voting "Yea").

See also a couple of excellent stories: Eli Sanders in the Stranger on the "kneecapping" of one of the few principled Democrats in Congress, Seattle's Jim McDermott, by the new House Majority Leader John Boehner; and an article that has been sitting on my "Read" pile for about a year, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi on the House Rules Committee, as a microcosm of the "house of horrors" that is the United States Congress.